No. 5 of 30 ·Network Protocol Analyzers

Ettercap

Mac · Linux · Self-hosted

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.5

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely2 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

Ettercap is ranked #5 of 30 in network protocol analyzers on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, macOS, Self-hosted. There is a free plan.

Ettercap plans and pricing

All plans

Ettercap Free Open-source project · source code downloads ettercap-project.org · 4 Oct 2026

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The record

Purpose: Ettercap is a suite for man-in-the-middle testing with live connection sniffing, on-the-fly content filtering, protocol dissection, and network and host analysis.
Interfaces: The project offers command-line, graphical, and ncurses interfaces.
Protocol analysis: Ettercap supports active and passive dissection of many protocols.
Filtering: Its integrated filtering engine lets users write filters that can modify packet payloads; filters are compiled with etterfilter.
Network discovery: Passive LAN scanning can extract host, operating-system, port, and gateway information from observed traffic.
Release: The downloads page lists version 0.8.4.1-Garofalo, released April 7, 2026, as the latest release.
Source integrity: The downloads page publishes SHA256 checksums for both bundled-library and source-only archives of the latest release.
Recent security fix: Version 0.8.4.1 lists a fix for a heap-out-of-bounds read issue in etterfilter identified as CVE-2026-3606.
Supported systems: The project lists Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, Pentoo, Mac OS X, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and NetBSD as tested distributions or systems.
Platform caveat: The about page lists Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows 10 as unsupported distributions where installation may work with additional settings.
Build requirements: Source compilation requires libraries and tools including libpcap, libnet, pthread, zlib, CMake, Flex, and Bison.
Project and license: The project describes itself as 100% open source and community run; its GitHub repository identifies the license as GPL-2.0.
Support and contributions: The project invites contributions through GitHub pull requests and directs bug reports to its GitHub bug tracker.
Who it serves: The project describes Ettercap as a MiTM tool and documents network and host analysis capabilities, indicating use in network testing and analysis.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Network Protocol Analyzers in 2026#5 of 30

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Sources

ettercap-project.org· checked 4 Oct 2026
ettercap-project.org/about.html· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/Ettercap/ettercap· checked 4 Oct 2026
ettercap-project.org/downloads.html· checked 4 Oct 2026
ettercap-project.org/get-involved.html· checked 4 Oct 2026

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